


but i can hear the angels marching

by Eddaic



Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Bantaka - Freeform, Comedy, Drama, M/M, Profanity, Sexual Content, Slash, Takaban, mature themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 15:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eddaic/pseuds/Eddaic
Summary: "I prayed to the wrong god."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [korisnik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/korisnik/gifts).



Warnings for mature themes, profanity, and sexual content.

**but i can hear the angels marching**

**Ennui**

Against Bansai's back the prison wall is corpse-cold. His toes curl against the ground and come up stuck with grime and traces of whatever the previous inmates left behind.

The grub isn’t inedible – he’s lived on worse – but they don’t let him at his shamisen frequently enough. He wants to run his fingers over the smooth wood, scrape his calluses on the strings. The guard tells him he can fuck it before he’s executed. He doesn’t appreciate the wording, but guesses he can die content if he can pay homage to music before he is welcomed in hell, or the void; he knows he has not contorted himself into the form heaven will accept. It’s all sorted out, clean-cut, stamped in red on official paper.

A voice creeps through the quiet. It slithers into Bansai’s ears and capsizes his thoughts, and even though it speaks of darkness he can picture only light.

**Immure**

Shinsuke leans against the bay window and cradles his shamisen on his lap the way a father would his child. "I'm giving you a chance to leave," he says. His eye, pale green and sharp as broken glass, bores right through Bansai's shades. "Once you agree to stay, you stay till one of us dies. You'll be bound to me against your will."

Bansai's mouth opens and he finds it working as if he has no control over his tongue, as if the wire that has held his feelings in check has snapped. "My will?" he murmurs, a trace of scorn in his tone, and Shinsuke cocks his head to one side. "My will is but yours."

**Ossify**

"I prayed to the wrong god. He told me to protect, to serve.” Another curl of smoke. “Such a joke.”

Bansai does not pity him – he’s not sure he knows how to pity, and anyway Shinsuke would take umbrage – but he is curious. “Did it break you?”

“Only into the right shape.” Shinsuke glances at him. Something resembling judgement gleams in his gaze. The glare of the lamplight casts half his face into shadows. “You don’t seem to be the sort who changes at all.”

Bansai ponders, scratching his head. “I daresay I'm not.” He thinks, _That’s why we fit together_ , but doesn’t say it.

**Saccharine**

The look on Shinsuke's face is not one Bansai has ever seen on him, or ever imagined he could see on him. It is a blend of disdainful, affronted, baffled, and just a trifle pleased. Bansai has no idea how Shinsuke managed to cram that many emotions into one expression, but then again, Shinsuke has always exceeded his expectations and set entirely new ones.

"You're _what_?" Shinsuke, unusually animated, says with a shake of the head.

" _Lactose intolerant_ ; are you deaf?"

Shinsuke looks at the fridge, then back at Bansai. "So you can't have Yakult?"

"Of course not! What is _wrong_ with you?" Bansai says in a somewhat shrill voice.

"Huh," says Shinsuke, blinking. "I bought a carton of it for you lot."

Bansai is _this_ close to letting out a shriek of frustration. "Why, you passive-aggressive... _I know_! Matako and the rest can have it! Why is it such a big deal? This isn't like you at all. Did you eat something bad? Is it the air? Did you make a deal with a witch?" He is vaguely aware and vaguely flattered that he is the only one who can get away with talking to Shinsuke like that, but right now he's too annoyed to care.

"Well," says Shinsuke, sounding a bit like an exasperated mother – Bansai pictures him putting his hand on his hip. He brings his kiseru to his lips and begins to strut away. "I can keep your share to myself, then." 

**Logophile**

He is surprised when he finds Shinsuke curled at the windowsill with a book of poetry, though he feels he shouldn’t be. Destructive and harsh though he may be, Shinsuke is oddly poetic, from his languid gait to his deliberately careless hair to the purse of his lips as he smokes.

"It's something of a pity," says Shinsuke, closing the book and keeping his gaze on the title. His voice is deep and dark and lilting, and Bansai wants to wrap his legs around it. "If the world burns, so does its poetry." He rests his head against the glass, looking rueful, yet resigned. What a theatrical bastard, Bansai muses; he missed his calling in life as a stage actor. "That is one thing that will be regretful."

Bansai speaks without thinking, only because he knows it will please Shinsuke. "I suppose there is a kind of poetry in destruction." He's not sure if he believes it, but Shinsuke smiles dryly, a dimple dipping in one cheek, and –

He doesn't really remember what they'd been talking about.

**Crapulent**

Bansai sniffles and then wipes his nose on Shinsuke's sleeve. "I wonder what my life woulda been like if I'd...ya know...been in a band..."

He's down with a miserable cold, and Shinsuke had off-handedly suggested taking a hot toddy. It ended with the two of them quaffing more-than-a-little expensive whiskey neat from crystal glasses. 

Shinsuke is an oddly accommodating drunk. "A band?" he slurs amiably, though there is just a hint of disdain in his tone. He is splayed, boneless like a beached jellyfish, next to Bansai on the sofa, his white knee protruding from the loose folds of his kimono.

"Yeah, a _band_ ," snaps Bansai, annoyed. Would it kill Shinsuke to _pretend_ to be totally interested, for once? At the back of his mind he registers his ire is due to the booze. He takes another swig. "One of those things where people get together and play instruments, often in front of people."

"Ahah," Shinsuke says, and hiccups. He is flushed and an easy smile plays on his lips, and it makes Bansai all flustered so he reaches forward and squishes Shinsuke's cheeks in his hand. They're soft, with barely a trace of peach fuzz. Bansai finds it funny how someone bent on world destruction can have such a round, baby face.

"Uh," he says and kisses him. It's just a quick peck, but it sates him. Shinsuke blinks, appearing dazed, but otherwise doesn't react. Bansai declares, "I'd have played the guitar. I daresay I'd have been a _rock star_."

"Nnm," says Shinsuke, suppressing a yawn. "I'd have...played the drums."

"Not surprised," returns Bansai. "It'd hide how short ya really are, ha."

He's quite sure Shinsuke had aimed for his face, but that doesn't make him feel any better as he tries to scrub the massive whiskey stain off his favourite shirt. He's grossly hung-over and his skull feels like it's about to split open. He mentally curses himself, Shinsuke, alcohol, and, for good, measure, whoever thought it was a good idea to go ahead and create the universe.

His cold is worse, too.

**Stipple**

Shinsuke makes no effort to conceal the purplish blotches that pepper his neck and shoulders. There are too many marks for them to be insect bites, and anyway not even a fly is on this ship. Trust Shinsuke to not make the slightest effort in hiding the aftereffects of their occasional trysts; by now Bansai is quite sure Shinsuke _enjoys_ people gaping at him but out of deference being unable to question him.

Bansai squares his shoulders and attempts to look as blasé as possible as Shinsuke outlines their next move with the Harusame. He holds himself carefully rigid when Shinsuke throws him looks from beneath his eyelashes, smirking like he’s inviting him to bed even though he’s just droning on about politics and warfare. There’s something about it all, coupled with the sway of Shinsuke’s kimono and the way he flicks the ash out of his kiseru, that’s bafflingly erotic, and Bansai forces himself to breathe normally.

Matako is too busy glaring at Shinsuke’s neck to process what he’s actually doing, but Henpeita’s eye slits to Bansai for a second longer than is strictly polite.

**Petrichor**

The rain has soaked through Shinsuke's bandages but he makes no move to remove them. He leans against the wooden railing, his gaze on the tethered ships wrapped in a blue-grey haze and swaying on the choppy water. At length his lips purse, and his brow smoothens, and he looks as young as he is, almost wistful.

Bansai is torn. This Shinsuke is different, more like the whelp he says he used to be than the unshakeable captain Bansai latched himself onto. But the anger has melted away from his face and his hair sticks blackly to his skin and there is almost _peace_ – 

"Enjoying the rain?" Bansai says, unable to filter the edge from his voice.

Shinsuke starts as if rudely woken from a dream. He looks at Bansai, and his eye narrows and his lip curls, and again he is the Shinsuke who Bansai knows.

As he walks away, back into the dry shelter of the cabin, his shoulders just a little stooped, Bansai glances back to the ships. For a moment he is struck with a powerful desire to slam his hand down on an upturned nail that is sticking out of the railing.

Once inside he offers to massage Shinsuke's shoulders. He clambers onto the bed beside him. His fingers are brushed aside.

**Weather**

Henpeita mentions, in a sagacious voice that suggests he believes he's older than he is, that Shinsuke is like winter, and the others in the room nod and murmur in agreement. Matako alone half stands up from her seat and protests, insists that Shinsuke is like a blooming spring or bright summer. Bansai remains silent, plucks the strings of his shamisen, and is glad for his sunglasses. If they saw what was in his eyes, they would question him, and he would not have to answer but he would fear that they would _understand_.

To him, Shinsuke has always been the rain, flooding the alleys of Bansai's soul and sweeping away the dirt, drowning him down to the light.

**Sough**

They haven't caught their breaths yet. Bansai is already nodding with sleepiness, his mouth against Shinsuke's smooth hair. The smell of ash and fire is everywhere – Shinsuke's scent. He blinks when Shinsuke whispers against his throat, "I don't want you to burn," but that could well have been the wind slipping through the trees outside.

_-finis-_

**Author's Note:**

> Written for korisnik. I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Have a good day. :)


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